


Grow as We go

by tygers_and_flowers



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, boyf riends - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24265330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tygers_and_flowers/pseuds/tygers_and_flowers
Summary: "But now there was something more. Something Michael could only think about when he was alone and when he was far enough away from Jeremy that it wasn’t written plainly across his face. It was this:Michael Mell was desperately in love with Jeremy Heere."Angsty, tropey, but generally harmless boyf riends. All the characters will probably appear at some point but it will be mostly Jeremy and Michael. I want to give them the happiness they deserve but.. I may give them some pain first Post-Canon. PG 13 with the exemption of some cussing
Relationships: Christine Canigula & Jeremy Heere, Christine Canigula & Michael Mell, Jeremy Heere & Michael Mell, Jeremy Heere/Michael Mell, boyf riends
Kudos: 10





	1. Prolouge

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys.  
> The first chapter is gonna be pretty short but I am gonna try to add regularly. I promise it will speed up soon. (Or not but I'm gonna do my best.) I'll try and do at least 800 words from here on out.

Michael sat against the white wall and tried not to inhale.

It smelled like rubbing alcohol and loneliness and in reality, he was trying not to cry, and holding his breath helped a bit. The fluorescent lights buzzed aggressively above him and he leaned his head back against the wall. There was something in the atmosphere of this hospital that seemed to amplify his guilt into a deafeningly loud cry.

This was all his fault.

Jeremy lay just behind that door unconscious and likely in pain because of Michael. Because Michael hadn’t stopped him from swallowing that stupid fucking pill. Because Michael had handed him that stupid drink and encouraged him. Because Michael hadn’t been a good enough friend in the first place.

Rich’s voice carried from under the door. His lisp still shocked Michael a bit. To be honest Michael still flinched a bit when Rick spoke to him. In his head, he knew that the years of abuse hadn’t actually been Rich's fault but…

Wait.

If Rich was talking to someone did that mean...

_Jeremy was awake._

Michael dug his nails into his hands deepening the bloody crescents that had been here for weeks. Jeremy was awake and in there and talking. _Jeremy_. Not whatever psycho cyborg fucker had been masquerading as him for weeks. The real thing. Michael took a deep breath, choked down the tidal wave of emotions that were rising in the pit of his stomach, and opened the door.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically some intro stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys.  
> I know this is kinda rough... I'm still getting in the swing of this fic but I hope you enjoy!!

Michael stared down at the tile beneath his feet and gripped his lunch tray like it was all he had in the world. 

Maybe it was.

He couldn’t help but feel as if his whole life was crumbling down around him.

Strike that.

Maybe it would be better if his whole life was crumbling down around him. At least he could name that. At least he would be able to understand what was happening, maybe he could hold some of it up. This was more like everything he had ever cared about had been a fever dream and Michal was waking up and it was all slipping through his fingers like it had never really existed. 

It had been two months since the hospital. Two months since Jeremy had woken up and everything had gone back to ‘normal’.

_ Normal.  _

What was  _ normal _ for Michael? Was it playing video games with Jeremy in his basement? Was it talking and laughing and knowing what the other boy was thinking before they thought it? Was it having another person who Michael trusted with everything he had and always felt comfortable with? 

If so then nothing was normal anymore. 

Now they went to Rich’s or Jake’s house to play. And Jeremy had his own inside jokes with them and Michael spent most of his time sitting on the edge of the couch feeling left out and upset. Jeremy clearly couldn’t tell, Jeremy barely looked at him anymore he was so consumed with his new better life. And every time Michael looked at Jeremy he felt like he stepped off the edge of a cliff because the range of emotions he felt was so intense and confusing. Anger, sadness, fear, guilt, and.. something else… Something more confusing he didn’t want to think about right now.

Now he stood at the front of the cafeteria deciding whether it would be more painful to sit at a table with Jeremy and the others or to sit alone and pretend he hadn’t seen them.

A movement flashed at the corner of his eye. Rich was waving him over to the table. 

He, Jake, and Brooke sat there holding court over the rest of the cafeteria. Michael knew Rich had expected to lose some of the popularity he had gained while he was squipped but the combination of having supremely popular friends and having bullied most of the school for so long seemed to have made him untouchable.

“So Mikey, settle a debate for us” Rich greeted him, his eyes glinting, “If Jake were to jump off of-” Michael stopped paying attention right about then… They didn’t care what he thought anyway.

Jeremy and Christine were walking up awkwardly holding hands and smiling at each other talking softly. 

The conversation worked around him, Jake and Rich still talking about whatever dumb stunt they were talking about earlier, Jeremy and Christine were trying to convince Brooke to join the school play. Michael tried not to be bitter. Jeremy should want Michael to join the play with him.

Chloe slid in the bench sitting next to Michael. 

“They’re adorable huh,” she said to him, though she didn’t really seem to be looking for an answer.

“Who?” Michael asked hoping that she wouldn’t respond. He knew who.

“Jeremy and Christine” she was staring intently at them as if she were observing a science demonstration.

“Yeah so cute”, he responded with a laugh that he hoped sounded less angry then he meant it. 

She gave him a curious once over and then proceeded to use her razor-like nails to peel and then devour and orange.

People tended to think Michael was pretty easy going. He put off a sort of ‘laid back, stoner, go with the flow dude’ kinda energy. Michael himself, who had lots of time to think about this, thought that this was probably some kind of subconscious self-defense mechanism he put forth to distract from the fact that he felt everything  _ so much.  _

For example, this simple comment made by Choe made him physically want to puke up his lunch. 

And of course, there was the fact that this whole fucking situation was probably his fault. Ironically the Squip seemed to have given Jeremy the life he wanted, though not in the way he had expected. 

_ God, please let this day be over soon _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know its short. I took out about a quarter of this chapter and decided to use it for the next one instead last minute but Ill update soon.  
> Comments and suggestions are always appreciated.


	3. Chapter Two

In seventh grade, Michael and Jeremy had gone to Six Flags. Jeremy, who had been deeply nervous beforehand, had loved it -- he spent the whole day riding on a rollercoaster high. Michael, however, got motion sickness so, so easily, that after every ride he’d make up some excuse to take a break and skip the next ride (he needed to pee, he was having an intense craving for a hot pretzel, he thought he saw someone he knew by the bumper cars, etc,). 

Jeremy’s dad could tell something was wrong but Michael kept denying it… He refused to ruin Jeremy’s day with his unfortunately potent nausea.

As he lay in bed on the floor of his room staring up a the ceiling after school that day Michael couldn’t help but see the similarities between then and now.

Michael pushed down his own feelings so that Jeremy could live in his own little bubble of happy friends and a high school girlfriend. He sacrificed his own happiness so Jeremy could stay blissfully ignorant.

But now there was something that decidedly hadn’t been there in seventh grade. Something Michael could only think about when he was alone and when he was far enough away from Jeremy that it wasn’t written plainly across his face. Something that would have probably made Seventh-Grade-Michael want to punch Now-Michael in the balls for ruining his perfect friendship.

Michael Mell was desperately in love with Jeremy Heere.

He had never before understood the term ‘desperately in love’.

It had always sounded pretty overdramatic and self-indulgent.

If we’re being honest Michael had never quite believed in being ‘in love’. It had just never felt real before… He didn’t deny that people might fall in love with each other, he just never thought it would happen to him.

And then.

Michael and Jeremy had been smoking in Michaels’s basement, and Michael had been explaining why the guitar riff in a certain Bowie song was so perfect. Jeremy sitting crosslegged on the floor across from him had looked up and pushed his glasses up his nose and just smiled at Michael and for some reason that was it. Michael didn’t know why a moment that had happened hundreds of times in the history of their friendship had pushed him over the edge. He didn’t know why his stomach flipped over inside him and he needed to bury his head in his hands and scream. 

(Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was because Jeremy’s cardigan was a little big and covered his hands in a supremely adorable way, maybe it was because Michael’s life was predestined to be a steaming pile of horse manure)

What he did know was simple. 

He was in love with his best (and only) friend.

It was something that was simply true.

And everything was the same from then on. Except it wasn’t.

The problem with being best friends with the person you also have a life-consuming crush on is this: you are obligated to pretend that you don’t.

So he gave Jeremy advice on how to talk to Christine the girl in his English class, and they hung out, and he acted like nothing was different.

And if Michaels’s whole life revolved around the few moments when Jeremy touched him (shoved him in the hallway, accidentally elbowed him while playing x-box, bumped him in the lunch line), and if when Jeremy made eye contact with him Michael wanted to simultaneously punch a wall, sob, and belt Celine Dion, at the top of his lungs (Yes he knew it was cringe-worthy, he couldn’t help himself.)... Well he would just keep that to himself.

So if Michael were to choose one adjective that described the way he was in love with Jeremy Heere it would be just that; _desperately_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I promise there will be dialogue in the next chapter.  
> Also my personal headcanon for this fic is that Michael wants Jeremy to get stoned in his basement because he subconsciously wants Jeremy to have the same realization he did and he (subconsciously) thinks that if he can recreate the moment that will happen.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and suggestions are totally appreciated.


End file.
